Book project.

“The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful ... Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.” 

My accordion book is base in the Kundera’s novel called The Unbearable lightness of being. The author tries to show the idea of dualism, the idea of two realities, two natures, which are the body and the mind. The novel is a love story full of the common and real problems that people face in real life.

I love that this novel is not only for the heart of the people who read it but also to his head and mind.

The novel is an anecdote and reflection about philosophical problems that we have to face in our daily life, helping us to look and understand them from many different points of view.

The novel is extremely complete because it talks about history, politics, philosophy, and psychology about the common issues we face in the world.

Starting from here, I took two subjects whom I think are important for almost everybody: What is love? What is truth?  

But getting to that point was not easy at all. At the beginning of the Project, I just had a bunch of quotes that I like from the book, but I didn’t have any idea of how to organize them. So I decided to just keep going, I started to select pictures for each quote and to fix them in Photoshop. Then I figured out that i could divide my book in two sections: truth and love. From that moment on everything just flow and I got Kind of obsessed working on the book.

So my book is an accordion that can be read in 2 different ways. When you finish one part is the start for the other. I think, that is a very nice way of putting things together, because although they are different concepts I relate them a lot, for me love is truth.

In each side, there are 5 pictures with a quote each one.

On the side of Love, the quotes are the followings:

In the sunset of dissolution everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia: for this quote I used a picture that I took of a sunset in Lyon, France. I think that a lot of times people feel nostalgic by love, so I used this to set a kind of mood or atmosphere to the book.

A single metaphor can give birth to love: this means for me that love is everywhere.  

Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost: I used a picture of a couple in central park holding hands, which creates a very good metaphor for the longing part of the quote.

We all need someone to look at us: the picture was taken in Lyon, France as well. In it is a mother taking a picture of her son. I really love this picture because i think it talks by itself and makes me feel happy and in love with life.

Happiness is the longing for repetition: the picture is a Little girl trying to touch a bird. I took it in Paris, I used it for the quote because in the moment that i took the photo the little girl was very happy and enjoying the fact that all this birds where around her because she was giving them food. And I think that you can tell that by yourself, her face is just pure happiness and softness.

And on the side of Truth the quotes are:

Living in truth means breaking barriers between the public and the private: for this, I used a funny picture that I took in Paris, you can see a man in the subway just wearing his underwear. I used it because I think that normally people walk around just using underwear when they are in private. So for me this is an excellent visual aid for the quote.

The only truly questions are the ones that even a child can formulate: the picture is a Little girl in Paris reading a book. When I saw her that day I felt very impressed because nowadays is not common to see children reading, they are usually playing with some electronic device. When you read, your mind wakes up and starts thinking and asking questions, that’s why I used this picture for the quote.

Keeping a public mind means living in lies: I used a picture that I took in Bryant Park at the summer film festival, the place was really crowded that day, so is the perfect scene for this fragment.

On the surface an intelligible lie, underneath an untelligible truth: The photo of the masks was taken in Prague. Masks are used for covering the face to conceal one's identity; it’s a lie hiding the truth.

Finally, I want to say that I really loved and enjoy doing this book. It was hard and heavy but it feels very good when you finally see your work done! I’m glad I chose this path and how I created a piece based on my favorite book in the whole world.